Rosberg extends lead with dominant Japan win

Mercedes wrapped the constructors' title for a third successive year with their performance at Suzuka.

Kimi Raikkonen was third in qualifying for Ferrari on what has so far been a strong weekend for the Italian squad, one place ahead of teammate Sebastian Vettel, who will drop three spots as punishment for shoving Rosberg into a spin at the start in Malaysia. However, a bad start at the grid thwarted Hamilton behind teammate Nico Rosberg, who eventually ended up winning the race.

"There's no point in changing my approach now, so I'm sticking with what I'm doing because it's working well".

Then, a few hours after he missed out on pole position on Saturday to Rosberg by just.013 seconds, he walked out of a media session in his team's hospitality suite before it even started. I made a mistake.

After pulling back his team-mate's 43-point advantage to lead by 19 points as a result of six wins from seven races, Hamilton has now failed to win since July.

Asked if he was happy with Verstappen's defense, after saying on the radio the Red Bull driver moved in the braking zone, Hamilton said: "It doesn't matter now, it's done and we move forwards".

"I'm well aware of the points".

Nevertheless, Hamilton was at his aggressive best and passed Vettel on the straights, moving into a fight with Verstappen in the Battle for Second. He now leads Hamilton by 33 points in the overall standings and, with just four races to go, can claim the title without winning any more races this year.

Never has a driver who has won eight or more races in a season gone on to lose the title.

"He's going to be going for it in the last four races".

The FIA then announced that the decision would be referred to the stewards at the next race in America, with neither Hamilton nor Verstappen still present at the track to provide evidence.

"Lewis (Hamilton) was obviously a bit quicker in the final stages and I knew he was going to catch me, the gap time on the pit board was dropping every lap".

"I did the best I could with where I was in the race", he said glumly.

He eventually climbed his way back up the leaderboard but could not finish ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who held onto second place.

On Thursday, Hamilton, a Briton, played with Snapchat on his smartphone during the official news conference before the weekend's race, apparently oblivious to his job of the moment.

Vettel and Raikkonen were fourth and fifth respectively, with Ricciardo, the victor in Malaysia last weekend, a distant sixth.